US tanks edge towards shrine

American tanks rolled toward a holy Shiite shrine in Najaf where militants were hiding today as a national conference voted to send a delegation to try to negotiate an end to the fighting.

The city, which had been quiet, was hit by series of explosions in the late morning that shook the vast cemetery, the scene of many battles between US forces and militants.

Witnesses also reported US tanks had moved to within 500 yards of the revered Imam Ali Shrine.

“We are proceeding with our operations. We are moving forward and we captured some positions inside the Old City from the south during the night and this morning,” Police Chief Brigadier Ghalib al-Jazaari said.

The fighting has cast a pall over the National Conference in Baghdad, an unprecedented gathering of 1,300 religious, tribal and political leaders from across Iraq meant to be a key first step toward democracy.

Some of the delegates threatened to walk out unless the crisis was resolved.

The conference voted today to send a delegation to Najaf to ask radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to tell his followers to drop their weapons and join the country’s political process.

“The door is very open to all Iraqis, regardless of their religion, ethnic background, to join the free political process,” Shiite cleric Hussein al-Sadr, a distant relative of Muqtada al-Sadr, told the conference.

Muqtada al-Sadr’s aides said they supported efforts to end the violence.

“We are ready to accept any mediation for a peaceful solution,” al-Sadr aide Ahmed al-Shaibany said.

At the same time, however, al-Shaibany called on tribal chiefs throughout Iraq to travel to Najaf to form human shields to protect al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militant and the Imam Ali Shrine.

The renewed fighting in Najaf killed two US soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division on Sunday. A third soldier was killed Sunday in the volatile Anbar province, the centre of the country’s Sunni insurgency.

At least 934 US service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq in March 2003.

The US military estimates hundreds of insurgents have been killed since the clashes broke out in Najaf on August 5, but the militants dispute the figure.